Meta blocks links to newsletter with leaked JD Vance documents
What's the story
Meta has moved quickly to block links across its platforms—Facebook, Instagram, and Threads—leading to a newsletter by American journalist Ken Klippenstein, with a dossier on VP candidate JD Vance.
The dossier reportedly came from an Iranian hack of the Trump campaign, and allegedly reveals the campaign's research on Vance.
In the wake of this issue, Meta has taken down posts containing these links and restricted access to PDF versions hosted elsewhere.
Likewise, X is also blocking links to the story.
Policy clarification
Stance on content from hacked sources
Meta's spokesperson, Dave Arnold, spoke with The Verge to clarify the company's position.
He said, "Our policies do not allow content from hacked sources or content leaked as part of a foreign government operation to influence US elections."
"We will be blocking such materials from being shared on our apps under our Community Standards," Arnold added.
Information
Privacy policy prohibits sharing hacked information
Meta's privacy policy explicitly forbids users from disseminating details "obtained from hacked sources." It also prohibits the distribution of "material that purports to reveal nonpublic information relevant to an election shared as part of a foreign government influence operation."
User experiences
User reports and workaround attempts
Some users on Threads have said that their posts with the link to the dossier got the boot from Meta.
It looks like the company is also disabling links to the document hosted on other platforms such as Scribd and Google Drive.
To dodge these restrictions, some users are getting creative by sharing links through a Google search for Klippenstein's Substack article, or posting the direct link with random spaces and words instead of punctuation marks, or even QR codes.